And destitute of heav'n-descended thought? Though, slighting the severer rules of art, With choicest cunning is thy descant wrought, If thou to lull the sense neglect the heart, Trust me, advent'rous youth, we suddenly must part."

She spoke; conviction follow'd as she spoke:
And though uncurb'd imagination scorn

To bend submissive to the servile yoke,
A temporary bondage must be borne.

The flaunting wild rose decks the crabbed thorn:
From surly rules sublimest labours grew.

No more my stricter song must you adorn,
Ye phantoms ever fair and ever new :

Adieu, delightful dreams; ye faery scenes, adieu.

VOL. I.

SONNET

TO SIR JAMES BLAND BURGES,

With the following Romance.

AGAIN my spirit wakes from deep repose,
Though deep not joyless; and each faery dream
That Fancy on the pregnant trance bestows,
Bids o'er the page in lasting beauty stream.
But, ah! no dazzling glories shalt Thou find,
Such as illume thy own consummate lay;
No miracles of the effulgent mind

To guide Thee through invention's milky-way :
A shepherd's simple song; of ardent youth
A rude narration, and of love sincere ;
Which Nature's mighty self, and virgin Truth,
Instill'd erewhile into his raptur'd ear.

Nor only shall it charm the village train,
If Thou wilt deign to list so low a strain.

THOMAS DERMODY.

LOVE'S LEGEND:

OR.

ARIBERT AND ANGELA.

A Romance, in Three Parts.

Rien n'est beau que le vrai; le vrai seul est aimable:
Il doit regner partout, et même dans la fable.

De tout fiction l'adroit fausseté

Ne tend qu'à faire briller aux yeux la vérité.

BOILEAU.

PART THE FIRST.

SAD-swelling on the evening gale
That moan'd along the purple heath,
Was heard an infant's helpless wail,
By him that pensive walk'd beneath.

The shepherd turn'd in haste around;
And as he turn'd, a beauteous child,
Cradled in moss and wild flow'rs, found:
The little mourner faintly smil'd.

And as his charge the peasant eyed,
Through the brown hawthorn's blossom'd shade,
A burst that forc'd the boughs aside,
Some stranger's guilty flight betray'd.

Not far from thence, in peaceful state
Ubaldo's ancient castle rose;
Whose master's heart, and open gate,
Did ne'er on weeping wanderer close.
Thither the swain his treasure bore;
And as he told, in simple guise,
The mystic story o'er and o'er,
Fond tears bedew'd the baron's eyes.

Within his arms the babe he caught
(Sweet babe, by heaven at once supplied!);
And melting thus in tender thought,
The venerable chieftain cry'd :

"Fair offspring of a sire unknown,
Pure snowdrop of the barren waste,
Henceforth I mark thee as my own,
For ever in my garden placed.

"There, next to Angela, expand
In artless pride thy balmy bloom;
And foster'd by no sparing hand,
Shed o'er my age a soft perfume."

Fly swift, ye years, on turtle-wing,
Nor let one cloud obscure the skies;
Fly swift o'er childhood's genial spring,
And let youth's ardent summer rise.

The years on turtle-wing are past,
Nor did one cloud the skies obscure;
Behold the fated pair, at last,
In youthful sympathy mature!

How often, Florizel, hast thou,

Ere Dawn withdrew her dappled shade,
Pluck'd from the mountain's thymy brow
A wreath to grace the blushing maid!

Or, when the am'rous marigold
Shut its broad breast with closing day,
How oft where moonlight, calm and cold,
Threw its wan lustre, wouldst thou stray!

Oft, where with silver foot unseen,
Soft-sliding from her pebbly bed,
Some naiad sleek through rushes green
Th' insinuative current led;

Didst thou her liquid lab'rinth trace,
That stole adown the fairy dale;
And pausing often in thy pace,
List to the blackbird's mellow tale.